


Battles and Wars

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Matriarchy, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:18:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dynasties come and go, but power is eternal.</p><p>ON HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Warrior King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PanBoleyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/gifts), [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End and Lord Protector of the Stormlands both for lack of sister, daughter or niece, traced the crowned stag prancing on the breast of his doublet with idle fingers, swearing under his breath when a callous snagged on the rich black velvet or the thread-of-gold. He stared hard at the festivities, if they could be called that for they were sombre indeed for a wedding.

He saw little beyond the cup of wine in his hand and the nightmarish visions of kidnap and rape dancing just behind his eyes, his thoughts reserved solely for the Lady of Winterfell, not for the wedding of her brother and Lord Protector.

Lyanna had been missing for months now – had been taken from the godswood at Winterfell, near as anyone could tell, and Robert burned with the need to rescue her. Just months before they were due to marry she had been taken from him, stolen away from him and from her family, from her home. When it had become clear that she hadn't simply gone off on one of her jaunts – a fairly regular thing, according to Ned – the entirety of the North seemed to have gone mad, and Robert right along with them.

Said brother and Lord Protector, the man Robert would have preferred as a brother for himself than the two he had (although, given as how Renly had yet to reach his ninth name day, that was probably a little unfair on him), was dancing with his new wife, neither of them quite smiling because neither of them were quite sure how they were supposed to behave.

Catelyn Tully was Lady of Riverrun, Ned Lord Protector of the North and, for the moment, heir to Winterfell, and theirs was a wonderful match – or at least, it would have been, had Brandon's ghost not hung heavy over proceedings.

Robert hadn't liked Brandon Stark all that much – Brandon had made it perfectly clear that he thought Robert beneath Lyanna on numerous occasions, had ignored the blatant hypocrisy of his disapproving of Robert's wandering eye and reputation for womanising, slut that he had been – but for Ned's sake and Lyanna's, he mourned Brandon's and their father's deaths. Catelyn Tully quite clearly mourned the death of her one-time betrothed, the taller, more handsome, more charming Stark brother, even today, when Robert had noticed her looking at Ned more than once as if searching for something that wasn't there.

Ned was a better catch, in Robert's opinion, and by far the more likely of the two to remain faithful to her, but it would doubtless take time for Catelyn – Cat, Robert knew she went by – to see that. Ned's charms were his quiet demeanour, his honesty and integrity, the surprising vein of sarcastic humour that was only coaxed out when he was absolutely comfortable in your company, the total and utter devotion he showed to those he loved. Ned Stark was the best man in Westeros, in Robert's opinion, himself most definitely included, and Catelyn Tully was lucky to have him.

As for the younger sister and Jon… Well. Robert had a sneaking suspicion that there would be little love in that marriage. Jon was old enough to be the girl's father and more, and she was a vain, foolish thing without her sister's grace and presence of mind. Ned was definitely getting the prize of House Tully, but at least they were generally fertile stock – Jon had need of an heir, after all.

Robert had suspected that Jon intended adopting Ned once Elbert was murdered, adopting him and naming him heir to the Eyrie, but the war had changed all of their plans, and so there would be an Arryn on the Weirwood Throne when Jon's day came after all.

He excused himself before the bedding ceremony – something he usually relished, but he suspected that both Ned and Jon would take it ill if he were to paw at their new wives. Ned was shy enough about the whole affair, ashamed by what he saw as a betrayal of Brandon's memory, without Robert involving himself. Ned was shy in general, of course, about women and about just about everything, but that was another part of his charm. Robert had always been confident and brash enough for three men, Ned reserved enough for four, and somehow they had balanced one another out, to Jon's eternal relief.

Robert settled himself on the top of the curtain wall and looked down into the Tumblestone, wondering how this all would end. Some of their sources had reported that the King was telling everyone that would listen that the Baratheons were using Lyanna's abduction as an excuse to usurp him, but in all honesty Robert hadn't considered the throne at all when he'd come forward in open rebellion. He only wanted Lyanna back, only wanted to make her his wife.

Lyanna would rule Winterfell, their daughter as her heir, and Robert would serve as Lord Protector for the North. It would happen. He would have Lyanna back.

But the throne… If he did end up as King, that would make Lyanna his Queen and leave both of them ineligible to rule their ancestral homelands. Their daughters would be heirs to the Iron Throne – because this Targaryen nonsense of the eldest son inheriting would end – and Winterfell would pass to Ned, Storm's End to Stannis…

Well, Storm's End would have been Stannis' regardless, because part of the betrothal arrangement had been that Robert would abdicate his claim and move north to Winterfell to rule at Lyanna's side.

And Dragonstone! If Robert did take the throne – an outcome that seemed to become more likely with every passing day, if the whispers were to be believed – then he would have to destroy House Targaryen without mercy, which meant Dragonstone and the Crownlands would be left without a ruler. The Crown Prince had always ruled Dragonstone, so mayhaps his and Lyanna's daughter would do the same…?

He pushed aside such thoughts. Politics were for Jon to worry about – Robert was a warrior, potentially a king, and he would be a husband as soon as Lyanna was returned to him. Of that he would make sure.

* * *

White enamel and red rubies shone on the far side of the water in the glaring sunshine, and Robert knew that golden antlers and silver wolves and trout shone on this side.

The Trident, shallow with the weather that left it too cold to rain, was remarkably still between the two armies. It mirrored the high, pale sun, cast shimmering lights that dazzled many of the men present.

It all came down to this. Months of campaigning, starting as soon as word of Brandon and Rickard Stark's deaths reached the Eyrie, and it all came down to this one final battle. King's Landing would fall if Rhaegar Targaryen did, Robert was sure of it, because no man alive would swear his sword to the Mad King with only the brattish, possibly mad, second son and a babe who might be as mad as his grandsire as hope of relief. Even the Lannisters might step forward and finally enter the fray.

Rhaegar Targaryen himself came forward on his great white charger flanked by two of his father's Kingsguard – Robert didn't understand how Lewyn Martell could stand to be near the bastard, knowing how Rhaegar had dishonoured his wife, Lewyn's niece, no more than he understood why Arthur Dayne, the finest sword in the Seven Kingdoms and, by all reports, Rhaegar's closest friend, was absent – and offered amnesty in return for surrender.

"This war is pointless," he insisted, looking from Robert to Ned to Hoster Tully. "I beg of you, Lord Baratheon – lay down your arms. I will see to it that no harm comes to you for your actions. You have my solemn vow."

"Just as Elia Martell had your solemn vow," Robert snarled. "Tell me, your highness, does your solemn vow count for much more than shit now?"

Rhaegar's violet eyes were sorrowful, as though Robert had made some unnecessary insult to his person.

"You leave me no choice, my lord," he said sadly. "It is battle, then."

"Aye," Robert agreed, wheeling Storm around – why he had let Renly name his horse, he'd never know – and turning for his army. "It is."

* * *

Battle was a dance, one Robert relished more than any, one he had been trained in all his life. Oh, he had trained as a ruler as well, once it became clear that his father would sire no daughters, that Storm's End would pass to a son of House Baratheon for the first time since long before the Conquest, but battle, war – that was what a Lord Protector learned, and Robert had never wished to be anything more than a Lord Protector.

Men fell to his hammer again and again, some wearing golden roses or sun-and-spears or three-headed dragons, but they all fell. Breastplates caved, helms smashed, chainmail tore clean through, and both blunt and spiked ends of his hammer glistened with blood. His armour, too, black enamel gleaming with gilded trim, the stag standing proud on his breastplate to match the antlers towering on his helm, was awash with the blood of his enemies.

Not yet with the blood of the dragon, but soon. Robert could almost taste Rhaegar Targaryen's impending doom.

Ned was somewhere nearby, more lethal with Ice than Robert could ever have imagined – he and Ned had trained together since they were little more than boys, had fought with every weapon imaginable, but he'd never seen anything so ferociously deadly as Ned in unadorned grey plate with all that Valyrian steel like a sunrise-washed storm-sky in his hands. Robert couldn't see his friend's face, but he knew that Ned regretted the life of every man that fell to his sword – he was soft like that, although perhaps it wasn't so much a fault as Robert sometimes thought – and would be grimacing as if their pains were his own.

And then, in the middle of the madness, a space opened up, a space that shimmered with rubies, and Robert's blood surged.

Rhaegar was fast – deadly fast – and surprisingly strong, but Robert was bigger, stronger, harder, his armour thicker and more practical, and he gladly took a wound to his left shoulder because it allowed him to swing his right arm around and stove in Rhaegar's fancy dragon-emblazoned breastplate with a single, crushing blow, a blow so powerful that the spike of Robert's hammer almost pierced the prince's back plate as well. Rubies scattered into the water at their feet, redder even than the blood that laced it already, and Robert threw back his head and laughed as Rhaegar choked and died.

"Victory!" he roared, raising his hammer high in one hand and Rhaegar's helm in the other. "Victory!"

* * *

 

King's Landing was all in crimson and gold when they rode through the gates. Robert wondered at that, wondered why Ned hadn't ordered the Lannister banners taken down as soon as he arrived, but he pushed the thought aside and turned his attention to the cheering rows of smallfolk lining the streets. Everywhere there was joy and delight, and Robert would have been swept up in it had his desperate worry for Lyanna not niggled constantly at the back of his mind.

Ned and Jon stood on either side of the Iron Throne when he strode into the throne room, Tywin Lannister at Jon's side and his son, Jaime, at Ned's. Robert could sense the dislike, the disdain, Ned bore to both Lannisters even from as far away as the doors, but he knew that few others new Ned well enough to truly understand just how deep his dislike must be for it to be so obvious.

"I'm told Mad Aerys fell to your sword," Robert said, turning to Jaime Lannister, the boy they already called the Kingslayer. He nodded, gilded armour bright, and Robert shook his head with a laugh. "Every vow you swore broken – but mayhaps it is forgivable in this case."

Ned and Jon both looked disapproving of that, but Robert would need a Kingsguard and there was no denying that Jaime Lannister was one of the best swordsmen in the realm. More importantly, his and Lyanna's daughters would need a Queensguard, because even the most powerful of Lord Protectors would be hard pressed to fend off every assault on a Queen's person. Robert had studied enough history to be well aware of that.

The throne was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked – hard and unpleasantly threatening under his arse in the strangest way – but the view was incomparable. Line after line of men on bended knee, Tywin bloody Lannister among them. He'd never felt so powerful in all his life, not even when he'd stood over Rhaegar's body on the Trident. This was power, true power – power that his daughter and his granddaughter and so on would wield when his day was done, and long before, too. It was an intoxicating notion.

"Bring them in," the Warden of the West – that his sister had named him over her husband was still a cause of derision for House Frey – called over his shoulder as he rose to his feet, something dark and unpleasant in his pale green eyes. His men came through the doors with crimson-wrapped bundles in their arms, and Robert felt a sick sort of thrill – not of excitement or anticipation, more of apprehension – as the three corpses were laid at his feet. "As a token of my fealty, Your Grace – Rhaegar Targaryen's wife and children."

Ned made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and turned his face away in disgust, grey eyes snapping shut as if to erase the sight of the two too-small bodies on either side of one that was only just big enough. Elia Martell had always been a small woman, frail and a shade unhealthy looking, but that didn't take away from her having been Rhaegar's wife. Unfair though he knew it was, absurd and wrong though it was, he couldn't shake the thought that if mayhaps she'd been more, Rhaegar would never have looked to Lyanna. Robert's Lyanna. Lyanna, who was still not at his side – she would be, though. He would drape her in a cloak of black velvet and cloth-of-gold, rather than shed his own colours for hers, and he would set a crown on her head, and their daughters would sit the throne.

Elia Martell and her children had not been enough for Rhaegar Targaryen. Robert would never forgive them that.

"Dragonspawn," Robert hissed, ignoring Ned's reaction and Jon's as well, his homely face almost green with poorly managed horror. "What of the Queen and the younger one?"

"Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys have fled to Dragonstone, Your Grace," the Kingslayer – the epitaph was remarkably easy to get used to – informed him. "Her Grace is with child, sire," he added hesitantly.

Robert's blood was boiling again, but he had more pertinent concerns than a lesser prince and a dying woman – because it was well known throughout the Seven Kingdoms that Rhaella Targaryen had suffered greatly at her brother-husband's hands – and so he turned away from the subject for the time being.

"What news of Lady Stark?" he demanded, settling as comfortably as he could on the most uncomfortable seat he had ever sat on. "Of the siege at Storm's End?"

"Lya is in Dorne, we know little more," Ned said tiredly, keeping his back resolutely to the bodies on the floor. "As for Storm's End, the Tyrells still hold the siege – you must ride out against them if you plan on keeping both your brothers alive, Robert. They'll be running short on supplies even if you were to leave right this minute."

"Send a message to Mace Tyrell," Robert decided. "Tell him how the land now lies. And send a raven to my brothers – they should know the truth of things before anyone else."

Lyanna in Dorne. _Dorne_. Did the bastard have no shame, to hide away his stolen woman in his wife's homeland?

"What of the rest of the Kingsguard?" he asked Jaime Lannister. "Lewyn Martell is dead, I saw him fall, but the rest?"

"Ser Barristan Selmy is gravely injured, but he lives," Jaime said catiously. "Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell and Lord Commander Hightower are absent, Your Grace, though I know not where. Ser Jonothor as well is fallen, sire," the boy added, almost an afterthought. "On the Trident, too."

Robert frowned - he knew not whether those suriviving men would honour their vows regardless of who wore the crown they were sworn to protect, or if Arthur Dayne in particular would forswear himself and refuse to serve, mayhaps even go so far as to flee after the little dragon whelp and the old queen to Dragonstone.

"Ned, find out where Lyanna is and bring her here. I won't have her left to rot in Dorne."

"What of you?" Ned asked, flinching slightly when Lannister men came and gathered up Elia Martell and her children. The floor was dark and damp where they had lain, but Robert paid it little mind - what was such a small stain when he had bathed in those children's father's blood so soon before? "While I find Lya?"

Robert leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and grinned.

"I have roses to prune."

 

* * *

 

Mace Tyrell, Paxter Redwyne, Randyll Tarly and Leyton Hightower bent the knee on behalf of their wives and daughters with a dissatisfying ease, but Robert contented himself with the knowledge that peace in the Reach and the Stormlands would leave Ned's journey to Dorne that much easier.

He feasted the Reacher lords in Storm's End, Stannis and Renly sitting to his right and left and their bannerwomen stretching out along the table beyond his brothers, leaving the visitors (invaders) to keep the lower tables. It was as great an insult as he could afford if he wished to maintain the peace, and that he wished for more fervently than anything save Lyanna and Ned's safe return.

Later, he brought Stannis into his solar and sat his brother down.

"I need you to take Dragonstone," he said seriously. "It can only be taken by sea, and I don't trust Paxter Redwyne, great admiral or no – I trust you. Take the royal fleet and destroy any resistance. Dragonstone is yours if you succeed."

Which left Storm's End to Renly, of course, which could quite possibly be seen as a poor indictment of Stannis' abilities, but Robert needed someone he could trust close to King's Landing, keeping the Crownlands. Even if he and Stannis had never been close – in truth, they did not like one another at all – Robert trusted his brother above any man save Ned and Jon. Stannis was too rigidly honourable to ever do anything but the right thing.

Stannis nodded sharply and stood up to take down a handful of maps from their bracket high up on the wall – Robert sank into strategizing as easy as falling asleep, somehow managing to ignore that niggling worry for Lyanna that had swelled to encompass Ned, too.

* * *

It was three months before Ned returned from Dorne. Three months in which Ned's son was born, a Tully-looking boy named Robb, according to his grandfather's letter, in which Tywin Lannister brought that daughter of his, Cersei, his sister's heir, from Casterly Rock, in which Jon reluctantly accepted the position of Hand of the King and in which Barristan Selmy recovered and was appointed Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

Three months in which Lyanna died and Ned produced a bastard son from somewhere.

Robert had been too stunned by Ned's brief letter – apparently coming from Starfall, of all places, the seat of House bloody Dayne – to do much more than drown his mounting sorrows in as much Arbor red as he could lay hands on and try to ignore the whispers that Ned's lad was Ashara Dayne's son – he couldn't be, could he? Ned and Ashara Dayne? The idea was madness – and that Lyanna had gone willingly with Rhaegar. Regardless of her feelings for Robert, and he was not fool enough to imagine that she had been as besotted by him as he was by her, Lyanna had been a Stark of Winterfell, honourable to her bones, and she would never have gone back on their betrothal just because she liked the look of Rhaegar Targaryen.

Ned was a different man when he rode into King's Landing, only Howland Reed left of the six companions who rode south with him, Ice strapped across his back and a babe with dark Stark hair and grey Stark eyes in his arms, Lyanna's bones with him to be carried all the way home to Winterfell. He seemed years older, weary right down deep, worn and grey in some way that Robert thought he maybe understood. Grief could do that to a man, after all, and Ned had lost more in this war than most.

"She was dying when I got there, Robert," he said, passing the boy off to his wet nurse. "She- I was too late. If the Kingsguard hadn't been there…"

That Ned had killed Arthur Dayne – the Sword of the Morning! – had come as almost as great a surprise as the news that he'd fathered a bastard.

But Lyanna. Strong, wilful, beautiful Lyanna, now nothing more than a box of bones and memories and grief-

All of that pushed aside by the Lannisters' endless crusade for power, by Tywin's having read an insult in Robert naming Jon as his Hand, and Robert abruptly found himself draping black-and-gold around Cersei Lannister's narrow shoulders and setting a diadem of golden antlers in her golden hair before presenting her to the city as their new queen.

He wasn't quite sure how it happened, wasn't quite sure that he liked it, but he knew that he needed a daughter to consolidate his hold on the Seven Kingdoms, and soon. He needed an heir, and for that, unfortunately, he needed a wife.

* * *

Ned's letters were few and far between – Jon apparently received more, and Lysa received one a month from her sister – but it became clear within a pleasingly short time that his marriage to Catelyn Tully was developing into a happy one. They were well matched, in a strange sort of way, both reserved and near as rigid as Stannis in their honour, and Robert had never expected anything but happiness between them. 

Robert couldn't say the same of his own marriage – Cersei was a vain, hard woman, far too aware of her beauty and with a wildly inflated opinion of her intelligence. She resented their marriage for removing her from the line of succession to Casterly Rock as much as she loved it for the crown it brought her, and Robert could not help but resent her for not being Lyanna. It didn't help that Cersei seemed determined to wrest what power from him she could, assuming that coming from a House that had bent the knee to its womenfolk for centuries would make him malleable to her manipulations. Not so – he would bend the knee to their daughter, to a woman of Baratheon blood, but not to a Lannister. Never to a Lannister, and Cersei had made it eminently clear that she had no intention of ever being anything other than a Lannister, parading around in crimson and ornamenting everything in rubies and golden lion's heads.

Two years after the war – Robert's Rebellion, they were calling it, although it had been more for Lyanna than for Robert himself, and rebellion had not been his intention when he raised his banners – Cersei swelled with child. Robert found himself unexpectedly excited, almost giddy at the prospect of fatherhood. He had several bastards, his girl in the Vale and others, but this would be his first trueborn child, the first child to bear his name. Congratulations poured in from across the realm when word of Cersei's pregnancy spread, congratulations which doubled when word of a golden-haired son reached the seven seats not held by House Baratheon, but only Ned's letter – the personal letter, not the official one in Catelyn's hand bearing congratulations and assurances that the boy, Joffrey, would be a wonderful Lord Protector when the time came – showed any sign of the commiseration and sympathy Robert so desired. He had been so certain that it would be a girl, his girl, with his mother's eyes and his mother's curly black hair, a girl he could call Myrcella for the last Storm Queen, but instead he had one more Lannister to trouble him.

Because the Lannisters were trouble. He knew that without any shadow of a doubt, even without Jon cautioning him to tread carefully and Stannis openly opposing Tywin at every turn. Few enough agreed with his decision to allow the Kingslayer to remain on the Kingsguard, and fewer still saw the reasoning behind it – at least, with him in King's Landing, Robert could keep an eye on him, and having him there seemed to soothe Cersei's quicksilver temper somewhat.

Not six moons later, Ned and Catelyn sent two letters south once more – personal and official – and Ned announced his intention to abdicate Winterfell to his new daughter, Sansa, once she turned six-and-ten.

Robert felt a desperate stab of jealousy on behalf of the daughters he and Lyanna would never have, who would have held Winterfell if not for Rhaegar fucking Targaryen. Not that he held any anger towards Ned – Ned, who had never wanted anything but peace and quiet, who had ridden to war only because it was his duty as Lord Protector of the North and as Lyanna's brother, who deserved every happiness the gods saw fit to give him simply because he was a good man, the best of men. He was glad that Ned had a daughter who Cat had agreed should take Winterfell, for the North had been as long without a lady as the Stormlands had been, longer even, but...

But knowing that Ned deserved to be happy did not make Robert's jealousy any easier to bear, of course, but it did enable him to mask it.

* * *

A worse sting came not two years later, when Stannis' daughter was born. There was some muttering that it looked bad for a king so determined to place his daughter on the throne that he could not manage to  _sire_  a daughter, when the brother who had so little apparent interest in his wife could manage the feat.

With that in mind – Ned with a daughter, Stannis with a daughter, every damned man in the Seven Kingdoms with a daughter save Robert – Robert set about seriously campaigning for a daughter, and despite Cersei's insistence that she would come to him at the times she was most likely to conceive, she conceded to his presence in her bed with less bad grace than she had shown before.

He visited her every night, usually at least mostly sober, and kept his eyes shut tight so he did not have to see that her eyes were not grey, that her hair was not dark and wild, that her skin was not pale and freckled. He had initially hidden his face in the crook of her neck when they laid together, but Cersei even smelled wrong, smelled of warmth and wealth and the Westerlands, whereas Lyanna – the few times he'd been close enough to catch her scent – had smelled of old things, cold things, things foreign to him that he had desperately wanted to discover.

He visited Cersei every night, but in his dreams Lyanna visited him. He took comfort in the knowledge that Cersei had similar dreams of some lover or other, because she slept as restlessly as he did himself, and when he first noticed the marks of another man's hands and mouth on her skin, he decided that she could go to hell next time she called him out for visiting the Street of Silk.

* * *

Balon Greyjoy rebelling came almost as a relief, because it gave him a valid excuse to escape King's Landing and the monthly disappointment when Cersei bled and her stomach stayed stubbornly flat. Robert took his frustrations out on the Ironmen, battering lines through them with his hammer with Ned and Ice at his right and Barristan Selmy at his left. Jon he left in King's Landing – Lysa was with child again, and Jon was beside himself with worry that this would be one more loss to add to their tally – to rule in his stead, and it was with a fierce sort of joy that he watched Balon Greyjoy kneel in his sons' blood and swear fealty once more. His only remaining son, a pretty sort of boy by the name of Theon ("A Stark name," Ned said, sounding surprised) was brought to Winterfell when they turned north for a celebratory feast under Ned's roof. He would be well kept there, even if it was only by Ned's castellan and household for half of the year, if only because it was so damnably dangerous to risk travelling in the North unless you knew the place.

Ned called the Greyjoy lad his ward, but everyone knew that he was a hostage to his father's good behaviour.

Ned's family were waiting for them when they arrived, having travelled to the relative safety of Winterfell from Riverrun when the Ironborn began reaving in earnest. His sons were as different as night and day – Robb reminded Robert of Brandon and of Edmure Tully, bright and eager and always smiling, whereas the bastard boy, Jon, was just like Ned, as serious and sombre as ever his father had ever been even as a lad.

Sansa, the future Lady of Winterfell, just gone two, was a beauty already, and would doubtless grow to outshine even her mother. Catelyn, for her part, greeted Robert as an old friend, embracing him as best she could with her infant daughter, her heir, nestled against her breast. The girl, Arya, had been born not long before Ned rode southwest to join the fight against the Greyjoys, and she was as Stark as her half-brother.

Robert could already see Lyanna in her, and it broke his heart clean in two.

* * *

Having seen the girl who might have been Lyanna's daughter, he became even more determined to see Cersei birth his own daughter. Now, he came to her chambers every night entirely sober to be sure he did his duty – he visited early and left as soon as he could without insulting her to get blind drunk and try not to think on how blonde her hair was – and miraculously, within four moons she was swelling and the entire country was abuzz with prayers and hopes that soon they would have a princess.

Cersei's temper was foul, her tongue sharper even than usual, but Robert couldn't find it in himself to be anything but utterly accepting of her moods because the maesters and midwives agreed that all signs pointed towards her carrying a daughter – that she was carrying high, whatever that meant, and that this pregnancy was affecting her very differently compared to how she had been while carrying Joffrey all indicated that the most basic fact of it had to be different.

So, a daughter. The thought elated and terrified him in equal measure – could he pass on the realm so crippled by Aerys Targaryen's madness and his own inefficiency, brought on by grief in the early days of his reign, in good conscience? Could he bear to see disappointment in eyes of storm-sea blue, in his mother's eyes as they would be made in his daughter's face?

He did not think he could face it, and so he turned to Jon and began actually wondering how it was he was supposed to rule the Seven Kingdoms.

He would do right by his daughter. He had failed Lyanna, but he would do right by his daughter.

* * *

Myrcella Baratheon, the first woman of their House to bear that name in almost three hundred years, was born in the middle of a fearsome summer storm, which struck Robert as brilliantly appropriate. She was as Baratheon as her brother was Lannister, all oversized blue eyes and a tuft of night-dark hair right on the top of her head, and when Robert held her close and called her his little Storm Queen, she looked up at him with those uncanny eyes and gurgled happily.

Renly, fifteen and growing more like Robert by the day except for their father's green eyes, immediately declared her a delight, but then, he had done so even with Stannis' ugly little daughter, so Robert was sceptical of his brother's enthusiasm.

Stannis had made it clear that Renly was a bad influence and would get nowhere near Shireen if he could help it, but it always seemed to be Renly that was playing with the girl, or walking her about by the hand through the gardens when the weather allowed. She was a sickly child, scarred by the greyscale, but somehow Renly's usual distaste for unpleasant things was absence where their shared niece was concerned.

Joffrey, even at four, was so horribly brattish that Robert often wondered where on earth he'd gotten that temper from, that Renly understandably wanted nothing to do with his nephew – and was often to be found carting his younger niece around in the crook of his elbow, chattering to her about horses and swords and the history of House Baratheon and how her father had fought a war against the dragons and won, all for the sake of a lady, and wouldn't she be lucky to have a Lord Protector who loved her that much when she grew up, all while Stannis' girl clung to his fingertips and offered excited agreements to Renly's every word, regardless of whether she understood them or not.

Even Stannis was grudgingly approving of Myrcella, commenting that she was very like their mother – high praise indeed from a man who measured every woman he met against the last Lady of Storm's End – and the congratulations and gifts that streamed in from bannerwomen and their lord protectors, friend and foe alike, were enough to sooth even Cersei's wicked temper.

Ned's letter was the finest of all, of course, even though it was characteristically blunt and honest – Ned had even less hold with flowery language than Robert did himself – because it was one of the few messages which he absolutely trusted the sincerity of.

Ned's letter and Renly's idle chatter about Lord Protectors set him thinking, but there were years left for that yet. Years.

* * *

His second son – his last child, because Tommen's birth damaged Cersei so badly that old Pycelle was certain that she would never bear another child – was born just days after Ned and Catelyn's second son, who they called Brandon and was reportedly as Tully as his full-brother and his oldest sister. Tommen had the dark Baratheon hair, but aside from that he was as Lannister as his mother – he already looked like Cersei and the Kingslayer, even with the round pudginess of baby-fat plumping out his rosy cheeks and the faint hint of blue in his wide green eyes.

Joffrey took an instant dislike to Tommen that burned almost as fiercely as his jealousy of Myrcella, and Robert felt a lightning-quick flash of guilt. He knew that it was his own fault that Joff was so put out, of course, considering the attention he lavished on Myrcella compared with the borderline apathy he exhibited towards Joffrey, but even at barely a year old, Myrcella was so easy to love compared to her older brother, who was whiney and petulant and cruel by turns. Already Joff had a reputation as a bully, something Renly and his friends, the Tyrell boys and a handful of the young Stormlords who acted as Lord Protectors for unmarried sisters and widowed mothers among them, worked hard to beat out of him – sometimes literally, to Cersei's ire.

* * *

Myrcella was three the first time she stole his crown clean off his head and ran off with it hanging down over her eyes, blinded by golden antlers and black curls, her giggles echoing around the throne room with his laughter as he chased her.

She was five the first time she wrapped her little hands around the shaft of his hammer, all freckles and bitten-down nails against the sweat-stained, battle-worn black leather, and tried to lift it. She didn't move it an inch – not a hair – but that only made her more determined, and she demanded that he bring her to the armoury every morning until she was strong enough to move it, even if she couldn't ever lift it.

Her septa intervened both times, but the boldness she displayed then and a hundred other times made Robert's heart swell with pride.

Tommen was shyer, following in Myrcella's shadow, and as cheerfully lazy as she was boundlessly energetic – he somehow managed to talk his way out of doing anything at all with a smile and a sweet word, but even with the way he constantly dodged his duties, he quickly became the obvious heir to the Kingslayer's skill with a blade.

In some ways, Myrcella and Tommen reminded him oddly of himself and Ned growing up in the Eyrie – her as brash and forceful and wild as he'd been himself, Tommen trying and failing to act as a voice of reason, just as Ned always had. The Targaryens had always talked about the blood of the dragon, the Starks of being wolf-blooded, but the Baratheons had storms surging in their veins, and Myrcella was living proof of that.

Joffrey, Robert knew, watched his sister and brother and seethed in jealousy.

* * *

Around the same time as Myrcella made it her life's goal to lift his hammer, Robert received a pair of letters from Riverrun announcing the birth of Ned's fourth son, another red-head who they were apparently calling Rickon. Myrcella began demanding that they be allowed go north to visit Lord Ned and Lady Cat and their family – Robert was always careful not to tell her that Riverrun, where Ned and his family spent half the year, was within easy enough travelling distance. She'd never let the notion of visiting go if she thought that. As well, he wondered what Ned would say to Myrcella calling him Ned, even though she'd never so much as laid eyes on him, and he also wondered if he should learn to say no to more of her demands – but was appeased by the reasoning that she had too much to learn about being a queen to travel all the way to Winterfell just to visit.

"Not just a queen, Papa," she told him earnestly, sitting on his lap on the Iron Throne and smiling up at him with those eyes so like his own. "A storm queen."

* * *

Robert would only ever reluctantly admit that it was the Kingslayer who managed to convince Myrcella that a Queen did not need to learn to fight with a warhammer, even a Storm Queen.

It was Renly who convinced her that she didn't need to learn how to fight with a sword, either, but there wasn't a single person in King's Landing who could manage to convince her that learning to shoot was unnecessary, especially when she pointed out that she could hunt safely from horseback if she could shoot well, and if she was to be a proper Baratheon she had to be able to hunt, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to conquer the stags of Storm's End the way Baratheon women had for years – that was one of the first times Robert cursed Renly for cramming her head full of every titbit of history that was to be found in the library at Storm's End, but it worked in getting Myrcella's way, and he couldn't be angry when she was so radiantly happy.

It was terrifying to be outdone by a six year old.

Cersei expressed her displeasure at the notion of Myrcella shooting as a hobby, of her engaging in any martial art of any sort, and Myrcella set aside any such thoughts and returned to her lessons in statecraft and women's arts immediately. Robert sometimes wondered if he ought worry about the influence Cersei wielded over the girl, but decided that Myrcella's Baratheon blood would counter any of Cersei's bile.

 

* * *

 

Joffrey was a menace – his cruelty seemed to blossom with age, and by the time he reached his tenth year, Robert could hardly bear to look at him. Robert had never pretended to be a good man, had always readily admitted to enjoying warfare perhaps more than he should have, but he had never, ever taken pleasure in the pain of another as Joff seemed to.

Cersei was the only one the boy would listen to, but of course she was blind to his flaws – she dressed him up in crimson and gold, stitched his clothes with lions, and generally made a fool of him by pretending that he was a Lannister.

Robert could only be relieved that he had managed to convince Myrcella's maids and Tommen's man that they, at least, should be dressed as proper Baratheons, black-and-gold and stags, which seemed to irritate Cersei as much as Joffrey parading around in Lannister colours bothered Robert.

* * *

Cersei's considerable fury was roused spectacularly when her aunt Genna decided to legitimise her missing uncle Gerion's bastard daughter and name her her heir – heir to Casterly Rock. Even when Cersei had been forced to abdicate her rights to the Rock when she married Robert, she had held out hope that none of her uncles would leave behind a daughter – she never did consider this very possibility – and so, when Robert died, she would be able to set aside her crown and return triumphant as Lady of the Rock, head of House Lannister. Doubtless she would try to convince Myrcella to release the Kingslayer from his vows to the Kingsguard so that he might be Lord Protector of the Westerlands, too, but the legitimisation of Joy Hill, now Jocelyn Lannister, reduced all of Cersei's hopes to so much pigswill and set her into such a series of tantrums that Robert sat by with Myrcella and Tommen and laughed outright at her shameful displays.

Joffrey, of course, had shared his mother's hopes, because if she was to take Casterly Rock he would have gone west with her as her heir. He hated Storm's End as much as Tommen hated Casterly Rock, hated being Renly's heir by dint of a severe lack of daughters on Renly's part, hated everything about being a Baratheon.

Most of all, Robert supposed, Joffrey hated not being heir to the throne, but what could he expect? House Baratheon had been in the hands of its women for centuries, just as every sensible House in Westeros had always been (the Dornish were a queer bunch, and Robert had always considered the Targaryens and Arryns and those lesser Houses who inherited through the male line as a sort of bewildering oddity), so how could Joffrey expect anything else?

* * *

When Ned's eldest boy and his bastard turned twelve – round about the same time Joffrey turned ten and became entirely insufferable – Robert suggested that Ned send one or both of them to King's Landing to be fostered. Catelyn intervened, apparently thinking that Cersei would see it as an insult for the bastard to come into her home – in hindsight, Robert had to admit that she had the right of it – and so it was that Ned and his Sansa came south to leave young Robb in Robert's care.

Sansa was prettier even than Robert had expected, the perfect little lady, all Tully-blue eyes and flaming red hair and pretty pink blushes fitting for a girl of nine years when he smiled and complimented her, and Ned seemed proud to bursting of his lovely girl and his handsome boy – Robb was as Tully as his mother, and had apparently very recently hit a growth spurt, because he seemed all limbs and cheekbones and eyes when Ned presented him.

Joffrey, of course, hated Robb Stark from the off, but Tommen took to following Robb around wide-eyed with a boyish sort of admiration, just as Myrcella had shyly – shy! Myrcella! – sat at Sansa's side at every meal during her and Ned's regretfully short stay in the city and listened carefully to everything the older girl said.

It had taken a very convoluted and mind-bendingly circumspect conversation to reassure Myrcella that she did not need to behave the same as Sansa Stark, that she was a Baratheon, not a Stark, that she would be a magnificent queen even without the perfect manners the Lady of Winterfell already showed at every turn.

Myrcella was generally unimpressed by anything, but the Starks had always been an impressive family.

* * *

 

Of course, having a Stark at court meant that the other Houses began clamouring for their lads and second daughters to spend time in the city, and so there was a sudden flood of young lords and ladies into the Red Keep, companions for the princess and princes officially but in reality potential wives and lord protectors for the children of House Baratheon.

Myrcella blatantly disregarded every boy who chased her, wise enough even as a little girl to know better than to believe every word of praise and adoration tossed her way – Lannister cynicism put to good use – and Joffrey was quick to gather a circle of admiring girls and like-minded little wretches around himself. Tommen seemed to enjoy simply having more boys of his age about the place to keep him company when Myrcella was busy.

Robert all but laughed at every letter Jon showed him from some lady or lordling hedging a vague enquiry as to whether or not he had given any consideration to the subject of who Princess Myrcella's Lord Protector would be when she took the throne, and wouldn't it be best to foster ties between the Iron Throne and this House or that.

More often than not, he was sorely tempted to write back and say that no, no, it wouldn't be best to foster ties between the throne and that piddly little House from the backarse of the Westerlands, because he, Robert of House Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms, Lord Protector of the Realm, had plans for his daughter, plans that involved moving her away from Lannister influence as best he bloody well could.

 

* * *

 

Ned's bastard came south for a time after he was knighted at fifteen – he'd been fostered with the Manderlys of White Harbour from he was twelve, from around the same time as Robb had come south to be fostered in King's Landing, it seemed, a compromise Ned and Cat had reached to make up for Ned raising the boy at Winterfell - and was absolutely brutal with a sword, relentless and determined in a way alien to what Robert knew of Ned. He and young Robb soon had Tommen hammering away in the practice yard every morning, a feat Robert had never been able to achieve, not even with Renly and the Kingslayer's added encouragement.

Jon, the lad was called, and he was just like Ned, quiet and reserved except in certain company – Robb's, generally, although he seemed to get along well enough with Jon Arryn as well, and was one of the few people Stannis didn't seem to openly despise, which was a fair achievement indeed, because Stannis despised everyone but his daughter, his Onion Knight, Jon Arryn, and, sometimes, Renly and Myrcella.

* * *

 

When Myrcella was ten, Margaery Tyrell, Lady of Highgarden, came to court for her ascension.

Robert had never presided over an ascension before, not an important one, and he found himself more excited than he ought have done - excited for Myrcella's, some six years ahead of them, when he could give up the crown he had never wanted and pass it to a woman, finally doing away with the unnatural nonsense of  _kings_.

The Tyrell girl was of an age with Ned's boys, six-and-ten and fully aware of how pretty she was, all chestnut curls and wide doe eyes that Robert didn't believe for an instant. Still, Myrcella seemed fond enough of her, and she was truly gifted at keeping Myrcella away from Cersei, but it was the effect she had on Jon Snow that was the most amusing part of her presence at court.

The poor lad seemed incapable of walking into a room that she was in without blushing, incapable of speaking to her without stumbling over his words – Robert had seen Ned in a similar situation a hundred times over, fumbling so much with a pretty girl that she got bored and moved on – and prompting him to all but hide behind young Robb to try and keep everyone from noticing how red his cheeks were above his beard.

Margaery Tyrell seemed to delight in teasing Jon, though, and soon enough she and Myrcella were making a game of it, walking around arm in arm, the best of friends despite the differences in their ages, giggling behind their hands when any of the young men they deigned to smile at reacted to their presence.

Margaery stayed for several months before returning to Highgarden, but she began paying more frequent visits to King's Landing, and hardly a week went by but Myrcella received a letter sealed with a rose and smelling of flowers to match the ones sealed with a direwolf that had been coming south since Robb came to foster at King's Landing.

It made Robert glad to see Myrcella friends with her bannerwomen – she could hopefully rely on the support of Dragonstone, Storm's End, Casterly Rock, Highgarden, Winterfell and the Eyrie in the event of a rebellion against her, provided Joffrey didn't pull some idiocy and set some of her allies against her, and even if the Martells and the Greyjoys combined forces – a laughable idea – they could not stand against so much of the realm.

 

* * *

 

Tommen was sad to see Ned's lad go, but Jon promised to visit soon – a promise he was forced to break when his sister managed to convince him to swear himself as her sworn shield not days after his arrival at Winterfell, if Ned's letters were to be believed. Somehow, that news spurred Tommen into practicing even harder with his sword, insisting that Myrcella would need a sworn shield until she found a lord protector and he'd be damned if anyone else was allowed to be his sister's guard.

The Kingslayer japed that mayhaps Tommen should work towards joining the Kingsguard, and seemed surprised when Tommen didn't laugh with him at the idea.

It did seem slightly laughable, Robert had to admit, because for all Tommen's skill with a blade he was a soft lad at the back of it, preferring to spend his days sitting in the gardens with a couple of his friends and his vast collection of cats to hunting or riding with the majority of the lordlings scattered about court.

 

* * *

 

When next Robert saw Ned, it was for young Sansa's ascension, and something seemed amiss between them.

The ease Robert had missed so much from their boyhood was gone, he could see it even as he named Ned's girl Lady of Winterfell in her own right, and even throwing a feast in her honour, to celebrate her ascension, seemed not to appease Ned for whatever had upset him.

"It is nothing you have done," Ned admitted sheepishly. "I simply dislike being away from Riverrun for long."

Robert knew that he would have been the same about Winterfell, had things gone as they should have, and he once more cursed Rhaegar Targaryen and his weak excuse of a wife.

 

* * *

 

It was not until around Myrcella's twelfth birthday, when whispers of dragons and Targaryens across the Narrow Sea became solid reports backed up by people fleeing the lands beyond the Free Cities for fear of what Mad Aerys' daughter would do to any who stood against her, that Robert began to worry in earnest. He had been working for years to eradicate the threat, but the last Targaryens seemed to have the Stranger's own luck when it came to evading the killers he sent after them. It turned his stomach to think that there were still dragonspawn running loose in the world, but there seemed nothing he could actually do about it.

He knew that there was no chance that he would survive a Targaryen landing in Westeros, no chance that any Baratheon or Lannister or Stark or Arryn or Tully would survive, but he would be a liar if he said that he would allow any harm to come to Myrcella while he still lived.

With that in mind, he began making discreet enquiries – using neither Varys nor Littlefinger, trusting neither man with Myrcella's life and safety because there were few enough who had proved their loyalty to the point where he would trust them with Myrcella, and neither Varys nor Littlefinger had truly done so – as to how he might go about saving his daughter from the wrath of the Targaryens.

Robb Stark proved an unbelievably useful ally, as moon-eyed for Myrcella as she was for him and just as eager to preserve her safety as Robert was, potentially more so. Of course, neither Robb nor Myrcella seemed aware that Robert knew that they were all but chasing one another, which proved useful as well – if Myrcella didn't know that he was using young Robb as a tool to preserve her, then she wouldn't stop spending every minute she could sneak in his company, and if young Robb didn't have cause to be afraid of his sweetheart's father because he thought said father didn't know who his sweetheart was, well, all the better. He was more useful that way.

Myrcella disapproved of assassins, refused to entertain the notion of buying the services of a Faceless Man even when the small council less Barristan Selmy pointed out the danger presented by Daenerys Targaryen's continued existence, but Robb supported the idea of it wholeheartedly with the good sense to see that it was the best chance they had of killing the horselord's whore before she might turn her attentions to Westeros – the only problem being that the inordinate cost of a Faceless Man meant that the crown could not foot the bill without depleting the treasury to an unmanageable extent, and Jon had refused to allow Littlefinger to approach the Iron Bank even once more.

Which left only Genna Lannister as a source of gold.

Which meant including the Lannisters in his plans.

And so the Faceless Men were set aside, and a Sorrowful Man hired instead, but he failed – failed miserably – and Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, survived to fight another day.

None had managed to stand against Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives during the Conquest.

By the time Myrcella turned fourteen and Daenerys Targaryen had crowned herself Queen of those cesspits around Slaver's Bay, Robert had decided that regardless of how hopeless it seemed to be, he would lead the Seven Kingdoms out in Myrcella's defence.

He would abdicate his crown on her sixteenth birthday, as always intended, but he would remain as her Lord Protector until she and young Robb stopped playing the fool and talked to Catelyn Tully. Perhaps even after that – he would see Myrcella survive this, and he would see her sit the Iron Throne.

He had failed Lyanna, but he would do right by his daughter.


	2. Myrcella, Sansa

"Well, girl – what do you think?"

Myrcella didn’t look back to her father when he spoke, letting him watch her face as she took in the sight of Harrenhall with the sun rising behind the Wailing Tower. She knew he liked it when she looked queenly, and she knew how queenly she looked, all limned in sunlight and wrapped in heavy furs with her circlet glinting in her hair.

"It's terribly ugly," she said with a shrug. "I've always wondered why nobody ever thought to raze it to the ground and build afresh – although I suppose it is useful to have somewhere large enough to host an event such as this. At least they had the good sense to raise the banners before we arrived – they couldn't manage that in Darry."

"Temper, temper," Tommen teased from the other side of her, grinning when she stuck out her tongue at him. "Come now, sweet sister – surely you can find some poetry in your soul for the greatest and most terrible castle in your realm?"

"I will leave the poetry to you, little brother, and pray that it does not involve cats," she sniped back. Her smile took any venom from her words, as did the affectionate wrinkle of her nose - she had never truly been angry with Tommen, and could never imagine being so. "Come, let us strike awe into the hearts of our assembled people – mayhaps we'll even find a wife for you, Tommen."

He snorted in amusement, ducking away from her attempt to slap his shoulder, and shook his head.

"Don't say such terrible things, Cella," he said, affecting an air of horror that set Myrcella off in peals of laughter - Tommen had never shown any interest in women that Myrcella had noticed, and she _would_ have noticed. She and Tommen may as well have been twins, for they were every bit as close as Mother and Uncle Jaime. "I have years of wenching ahead of me yet!"

Bored of Father’s penchant for taking in the view - how nostalgic he had become for times past since Harrenhall had been chosen as the venue for this council, going on and on about his Lady Lyanna and telling tales of Lord Tully, although as always, he called him Ned, Ned Stark. Myrcella and Tommen had heard every tale a hundred times, and so they galloped towards Harrenhall with Uncle Jaime and Arys Oakheart on their heels before Father could stumble upon some blade of grass that brought some memory from the deepest recesses of his mind.

Myrcella did not wholly see the need for this council, for all that she was looking forward to meeting those who would be her subjects so soon. Father argued that the Targaryen threat was rising once more, and yes, every mile of ground Daenerys Targaryen laid claim to that brought her closer to Westeros made her seem a more plausible threat, and made Father more and more dour – she seemed to be travelling by land from Slaver's Bay, making her way along the roads that were all that remained of the old Valyrian Freehold built by her ancestors, making first for Old Valyria and then, presumably, for Westeros – but Myrcella still did not understand. She doubted the rumours of the last Targaryen’s dragons, after all, just as she doubted the truth of “Prince Aegon” and his claims to her throne, and it seemed impossible that such things could exist in a world so sensible as theirs.

Besides, Father had defeated the bitch’s brother, Uncle Jaime her father, and Grandfather’s men had seen to it that none remained of the royal family save those few - Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys, then an infant - who had slipped through Uncle Stannis’ fingers. What was there to fear of a woman raised by a mad brother without a mother to guide her? A woman raised to believe the freakish nonsense of the patriarchal inheritance laws?

 

* * *

 

The journey from Winterfell had been arduous - the snows lay thick on the ground even on the kingsroad, which ought to have been cleared but of course had not, simply because it _could not_ be kept clear when there was constant snowfall - but worth it, Sansa thought, tugging her scarf looser around her neck and gazing up at the vastness of Harrenhall.

“I did not truly believe it could be as big as Father said,” Jon admitted, reining in alongside her and leaning his crossed arms on the pommel of his saddle. “I think it may be even bigger, though.”

“I was hoping it wasn’t as ugly as Father said,” Sansa confided, which made Jon laugh - but it was true, because there were so many stories and tales linked to Harrenhall that it seemed a shame for the truth of the place to be melted and blackened and hideous.

Father would be waiting for them within somewhere, with Mother - that was, Sansa’s mother - and their siblings. Sansa had not seen any of her family save Robb in near two years, since she made a visit to Riverrun on her way home after her ascension ceremony in the capital. She and Arya wrote to one another near obsessively, of course, but that was not the same as spending part of every year in Riverrun and Father being with her most of the time in Winterfell.

She looked forward to seeing her little brothers - any changes in Arya would surprise her little enough, she knew, but in Bran and Rickon they would be startling, she did not doubt.

As for Robb…

“He’ll be hanging about the Princess all the time, I suppose,” Jon said quietly, catching the set of her jaw that he knew bespoke their older brother. “Gods, he spoke of nothing else the whole time he was visiting.”

“He speaks of nothing else in his letters, either,” Sansa groused, tapping her heels to her horse’s flanks. “And not anything useful - it’s all her favourite music, how beautiful she looked at some feast or other, not a peep about her relationship with her foul grandfather.”

“If I didn’t know better, sister mine, I’d say you were jealous of the Princess for having a man so obviously enamoured with her.”

Sansa rolled her eyes, motioning for her companions to follow on with her and starting down the hill to the castle. No, she had no man so smitten with her as Robb was with the Princess - she had Harry Karstark, who seemed to think it his business to scare away all other men from even considering courting her. She had Smalljon Umber and Harry Hardyng, her cousin’s cousin, neither of whom she would have minded terribly being married to had they not been heirs to holdings in their own rights and therefore ineligible to become her Lord Protector.

She had sweet-smelling letters with broken seals of green wax all tied together with a pink ribbon, tucked away under her mattress at home in Winterfell, of course, but that was another matter entirely. Idle flirtation, nothing more.

“I would not wish a love like Robb’s on any woman,” Sansa said firmly. “It borders on obsession, and besides, he thinks the Princess is some sort of empty headed little fool in need of his _protection_ , who would need a husband to help her rule.”

“Aye,” Jon agreed, his teeth startlingly bright against the dark of his beard as he grinned, “can you imagine Robb as a King?”

Sansa made every effort not to laugh, but it was impossible. Robb had always shown a remarkable talent for tactics, she remembered, thinking back on the lessons he and Jon had taken with Ser Rodrick while Maester Luwin and Septa Mordane (and Mother) had taught her the business of ruling, but Grandfather and Uncle Brynden had always delighted in presenting them with puzzles of politics and logic and watching them unravel them. Sansa had always liked them, and Arya had excelled at them, but Robb had often seemed to miss the point of the exercise and come to some well-meaning but ultimately useless conclusion.

Ah, well. If he did end up as Myrcella Baratheon’s Prince Consort, he would have little need of politics and every need of tactics, she supposed.

The Tullys were there already when Sansa and Jon led the Northern contingent through the huge gates, Arya and Bran and Rickon rushing forward to meet them with their wolves yipping and jumping at their heels.

Sansa could not help but laugh as Lady sprung up and landed half atop Shaggydog, not until Rickon near pulled her from her saddle in his efforts to be the first to greet her.

“Calm, little brother!” she exclaimed. “Gods be good, you’ve grown so tall!”

But then, Rickon was eleven years gone, and had always taken more after Mother’s family than Father’s - he was the same long, rangey shape as Uncle Bryden, and had he been able to grow a beard, she suspected he would have borne an uncanny resemblance to the Blackfish, much in the way Jon had grown more like Uncle Benjen and less like Father as he had grown into himself.

It struck Sansa, as Bran rambled up beside her, that she had not seen her little brothers in near to three years, since her ascension ceremony and her last visit to Riverrun. It was so strange to realise that they were, to all intents and purposes, strangers to her now, and she could see from the queer look on Jon’s face that he felt the same.

“Mother and Father are within,” Bran said, more reserved in his greeting than Rickon, choosing to lift her hand to his lips with a small smile. “Arya was supposed to remain with them while we came out to greet you, but-”

“Move away, Brandon!” Arya called merrily, shoving him aside neatly and drawing Sansa into a finally familiar embrace. “We _ladies_ doubtless have some matter of import to discuss, you can monopolise Lady Stark later on.”

Sansa laughed, tipping her head back as Arya’s hand slipped into hers, and she waved for Jon to follow as Arya led her into the ugly old castle.

“I’ll follow on later,” he promised her. “I’d best make sure everyone settles as they should.”

Mother and Father were indeed waiting within, as Bran had said. Mother had been assigned a fine set of chambers - she was both liegelady and niece to Lady Whent, after all - and Sansa was relieved that she had a moment to compose herself before she had to greet her parents, glad that there was a great sweep of floor between them so she did not have to immediately react.

They had gotten so _old_.

“Sansa,” Mother said warmly, and before she embraced her Sansa noted the lines around Mother’s eyes and mouth, the silver streaking her fire-bright hair, how thin her neck seemed above the loose coils of her scarf. “It is so good to see you, sweetling.”

“And you, Mother,” Sansa promised, holding her as tight as she dared - she seemed so frail! When had that happened? It had only been three years! “Have you been here long? Arya and the boys did not pause for breath long enough to let me ask such things.”

“Only a week or so,” Father assured her, stepping forward from his habitual place at Mother’s shoulder and holding out his arms. “We have all been eager to see you, sweetling.”

Her father’s smile was a rare, sweet thing, and Sansa revelled in it even as she startled at the grey smothering the brown in his beard and hair, at how his hands were nowhere near as strong as she remembered.

“And I you,” she said, leaning away to look for new changes in his face - something in his eyes seemed tired, and she saw that same weariness in Mother, and wondered what it was they were not telling her.

They were obviously not going to tell her now, so she shrugged out of her cloak and furs and settled into the chair Father guided her to.

“Jon will be along soon,” she said with a smile, gladly accepting the spiced cider Arya pressed into her hands. “He is-”

“Doing his duty, as always,” Mother said, and Sansa wished that there was more fondness in her voice - Jon had suffered more than anyone for Father’s lies, after all.

But Mother had suffered too, had she not? She had been shamed before the whole realm, given a man who all thought had dishonoured not only her but also some other woman (the rumours, despite Father’s quiet efforts, still spoke of Ashara Dayne, especially since Jon had shown such talent with a sword).

It was all such a tangle. Sometimes, Sansa dreamed that Jon was her trueborn brother, but then decided not because he would not be an ill fit with her and Arya if he were not a bastard.

_A fish in Winterfell and a wolf in Riverrun_. Gods, she hated Roose Bolton and his cool, cutting voice.

 

* * *

 

"I think Uncle Stannis would make a decent Hand," Myrcella said to Tommen as they picked at the fruits and sweets that had been provided in Father’s rooms upon their arrival. "And Margaery is always highly complementary of her brother, the eldest one – Willas, do you remember him? He hasn't been to court in years."

Myrcella loved the Tyrells - they were so beautiful and courteous, and Margaery wrote her such lovely, kind letters. Mother distrusted them, but Myrcella had come to the conclusion that Mother mistrusted _everyone_ , and so she was sceptical of her mother’s judgement on the matter.

Willas Tyrell would be more fun as Hand than Uncle Stannis, that was certain.

"I believe I do," Tommen said, tapping his chin and looking skyward with thoughtful eyes. Myrcella had always been jealous of Tommen's eyes, such a pretty blue-green colour. She consoled herself with the knowledge that she had proper Baratheon eyes, like her father and her never-seen grandmother, a deep bright blue like the waters of Shipbreaker Bay just off Storm's End. "I dare say the Tyrells will take to the yard while we’re marooned here – it's been a good long while since last I saw Ser Loras fight. Do you think Father might organise a joust?"

Tommen was an enthusiastic but appalling tourney competitor, lethal though he undoubtedly was with a sword – Myrcella couldn't remember ever seeing him victorious in a joust, but he persisted with his usual laughing goodwill.

"Mayhaps," she hedged evasively, toying with a long spiral of orange peel. She couldn't help but think of all the stories that were told only in whispers in the Red Keep, stories of the last grand meeting at Harrenhall and the tourney that had started a war. "Although that is a poor way to choose a Hand – Uncle Jaime has won dozens of tourneys, but can you imagine him on the small council?"

"A nightmare indeed, Princess," Jaime agreed with a grin near identical to Tommen's. "The realm would collapse within a moon's turn."

Father chose that moment to enter, Lord Arryn at his side.

“Plotting my replacement, Princess?” Lord Arryn asked with a smile, which Myrcella just about managed to return. She didn’t like Lord Arryn at all, who Father sometimes seemed to love more than he did her, who was the reason she was forced to endure horrible Sweetrobin about court.

And besides, Lord Arryn’s breath was _awful_. She sometimes thought to suggest that he chew peppermint leaves, in Lord Baelish’s style, but sensed that Father would disapprove if she were to dare criticise his beloved Hand.

“Of course not, Lord Arryn,” she said sweetly, rising to greet Father with a kiss to his cheek, unable to keep from smiling when he pinched her ribs to make her giggle as he had for as long as she could remember. “Papa, have you need of Tommen and I? We thought to take a tour of the keep before tonight’s festivities if not-”

“Off with you both,” he said easily, kissing her hair and clapping Tommen on the shoulder. “Be sure to have your guards, though!”

Uncle Jaime and sweet Ser Arys trailed in their steps - Myrcella supposed Ser Barristan was with Father, which left some of the others, all of whom were terribly boring, for Mother and Joffrey, whenever he arrived.

She wondered if it were terrible that she did not know or care if her older brother was present. In truth, she would not have minded very much had he chosen to remain at Storm’s End for this council, where he could not harrass her friends.

“Come along, Tommen!” she sang, looping her arm through his and tugging him along with her. “Let us see what great and terrible secrets are hidden amongst the shades of Harrenhall!”

 

* * *

 

Robb had not changed since last Sansa had seen him, except that his hair was a little longer and his arms a little thicker with muscle.

“Lady Stark,” he said, bowing at the waist and smiling when he straightened up. “I’m glad to see you well, sister.”

“And I you,” she said, feeling as though she had done nothing but exchange painfully empty greetings with her family since the moment she had arrived. She longed for a bath, and for the feast to be over so she might sit by the fire with Jon and Arya and their wolves and pretend, just for a little while, that they were children at Winterfell once more, all feeling as though they fit slightly wrong in the places assigned to them.

**  
  
**


	3. Arya, Shireen, Joy

Truth be told, Harrenhall was not nearly so bad as everyone said.

Oh, yes, it was ugly as sin, and when the wind cried through the Wailing Tower it would turn a woman's hair all to grey, but Arya had always liked the half-ruin. Lady Shella was a more than gracious hostess, and witty besides, and there was a wildness about the place, a break in the propriety Arya found so boring, that was somehow reminiscent of Winterfell.

So yes, Arya liked Harrenhall, even if none other seemed to, save mayhaps Bran. Bran, she knew, liked it solely because Lady Shella had always turned a blind eye to his climbing the walls when they were children, but he humoured her more than their lady mother did.

“It is a cursed place,” Mother had said as they arrived, hardly more than a whisper and spoken with a smile despite the warning in her tone. “Haunted by all the evils that have occured within the walls over the years.”

Mother would know, Arya supposed – Grandfather had always been fond of telling tales of his former home, before his health failed, and she could only assume that he had told them with even greater enthusiasm when in the prime of his health, when Mother and her siblings were children. Mother rarely spoke of her childhood, though, rarely spoke of anything prior to the Rebellion save for sunny afternoons in the rivers with Lady Arryn and Uncle Edmure, or of fending off politely interested suitors after her betrothal to Arya's uncle had been set.

Mother spoke constantly of suitors, mentioning names from all across the Riverlands and from the North, too, and even sometimes from the Vale and Dorne, and sometimes even came close to speaking the correct name, the one Arya would hear with more than a sigh and a frown.

Father often said she was being rude when she behaved so. She knew that he was right, of course, but that did not mean she had to admit to it. Not when Mother simply would not leave her be.

Harrenhall was a place for which Father bore no fondness, either. Arya wondered if it held more ghosts for him even than for Mother, if he saw his brother and sister, if he saw all that had passed during that long-ago tourney and all that might have been had Rhaegar Targaryen not taken Arya's aunt for his own.

They all said Arya was the very image of her late aunt. They all spoke of the King's still-burning love of Lyanna Stark, too, and Arya planned on keeping as much away from him as she could without causing offence. She had seen how men reacted to such things – Mother and Father had tried to shield her from such ills, from what Septa called _the ways of men._ Bethany had snorted at that, said that she had many brothers and knew that _true_ men would not behave in such a manner, but Arya had understood all the same. Beth had been betrothed since she was near a babe, to one of the Runestone Royces from the Vale, and had been Arya's companion at Riverrun ever since Sansa had ascended to Lady of Winterfell and returned North to stay – Arya had learned a great deal from her friend, sometimes more than she might have liked.

Ghosts and haunts and grief aplenty there was at Harrenhall, but Arya sought to make new memories for Father, new stories for Mother. As the Lady Paramount's heir and Lady Shella's grandniece, she was only two steps away from hostess herself, and so Arya had settled on ensuring that there would not be a bad word to be said about the Riverlands by the end of the festivities.

She was not certain, quite yet, how to make it so, but she was sure Beth would help, and Sansa and Jon and Bran as well.

As well, having Sansa about would provide a distraction for Mother – Sansa was older than Arya, and yet unwed, not even a betrothal to be spoken of. Surely,  _surely_ Mother and Father would be more concerned with finding a husband for Sansa than for Arya, at least for as long as Sansa remained south of the Neck?

Sansa had always neglected to answer any of Arya's curious questions about, well, about men, at least since she had gone home to Winterfell and they had taken to exchanging letters so often as they did. She had always put it down to Sansa's being  _such_ a lady, but mayhap there was more to it than that. Sansa had always loved to talk of handsome knights and kindly lords when they were girls together at Riverrun, so it struck Arya as odd that her sister would lose interest in such things so entirely.

With that in mind, she rolled over – she and Sansa had agreed to share the room Sansa had been given, at least for tonight, because for all that they bickered when together, they missed one another terribly when apart – and leaned up on her elbows, waiting until Sansa, too, rolled to face the middle of the bed.

“Do you have a lover, Sansa?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shireen's lord father sat rigidly straight in his seat by her oldest uncle, staring across the table to her younger uncle as if daring him to laugh.

She was surprised when Renly did not. He often did, when Uncle Robert made japes about Shireen's lady mother, and that remained one of the things for which she would never truly forgive him, along with the japes he made about her own scarring while in his cups. No, she was not fond of her uncles, for they had no hold on their tongues – the gods knew that Shireen's father loathed the Queen, that he found Renly's being yet unwed bothersome and irritating, if only because the notion of Joffrey inheriting Storm's End repulsed him, but blunt though he was he refrained from saying such things publicly, where they might shame his brothers.

Those same brothers did not show him the same courtesy, or at least, had never done so in Shireen's presence.

Dragonstone was not court, and Shireen had spent little enough time in King's Landing since she was a child that evenings such as these were strange to her. She was more used to dining with just her parents, mayhaps Ser Davos and Lady Melisandre in attendance, what few companions she had. 

Here, she had all those of House Baratheon, along with what felt like an army of attendants, half of House Lannister, all of House Arryn, and sundry others whose names she knew but who she did not care to acknowledge. Shireen was niece of the King, and with the law so tangled as it was at present, either fifth or second in line for the Iron Throne. She had no need to dally with those who sought to ingratiate themselves with her and hers for personal gain, not when she had such enjoyable company in her foster-brother and youngest uncle.

Honestly, she preferred Robert – Sweetrobin, others called him still, but she knew better, knew that he had outgrown the petname foisted upon him by his mother before he had come to Dragonstone for fostering – but Renly, while he was being kind, was funny and charming, and little as she trusted him, Shireen did  _like_ her uncle.

“Watch,” he whispered, leaning close enough that only Shireen and Robert might hear him, “the Queen will storm away any moment, and the poor Princess will be left deciding with which parent she ought side.”

True enough, within moments, the Queen had risen from her seat and swept from the room, all gilded and lovely and utterly, utterly horrid, trailed by the Kingslayer and cousin Joffrey. Shireen had hardly been in the company of the royal family for two days, and already she had seen how readily the princes were divided in favour of different parents – poor Myrcella, however, was torn, constantly it seemed, between the King and the Queen. 

Shireen did not know what such a thing would be like – her parents may not have loved one another, but they respected one another, she knew that, and at the very least each treated the other as a person. The King and the Queen fought viciously all of the time in public, and Shireen could not even begin to imagine how poor their relationship must be behind closed doors.

She had attempted, just earlier that evening, to offer Myrcella some comfort after the King had spoken cruelly to the Queen, but the Princess had been... Well, mayhaps it was not so surprising that she was torn between her parents. Mayhaps Shireen's cousins allegiances were not so surprising at all, in truth, for Joffrey was wholly the Queen's, right down to the gold of his hair, and aside from the Kingslayer's smile and the shadow of green in his eyes, Tommen was entirely the King made new, more even than Renly.

Myrcella, though, looked entirely the King and largely acted it, too, but there was a bitter sort of arrogance about her that was wholly the Queen.

Shireen sipped her wine and set that unkind thought aside – true, herself and Myrcella had... Not gotten along well as children, particularly not before Joffrey had gone to foster at Storm's End with Renly, but that did not excuse uncharitable thoughts. If nothing else, Shireen knew, Myrcella was younger even than herself, and just as spoiled as Robert had been when he arrived at Dragonstone, and she was not to blame for any of that. The responsibility of the crown would surely mature her cousin, just as the responsibility of becoming Lady of Dragonstone had matured her.

In the end, the Princess settled once more into her seat at the King's right hand, smiling prettily and tossing her hair gaily. Shireen wondered how she could do it, how it was possible to switch from anxious and upset to joyous and sweet in the space of a breath, of a heartbeat, and knew that there was too much of her mother and her father both in her to ever enable her to emulate Myrcella.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Joy liked most of her cousins well enough – Tyrion and Tyrek in particular, although she was fond enough of the boy twins, too, and little Janei was growing into herself, Joy supposed – but she had never been able to warm to Tywin's twins.

Jaime wasn't so bad, she supposed, even if he was much to fond of himself for Joy's tastes, and he was less a person in his own right and more a shadow of the Queen, at least in Joy's experience. He never seemed to say or do a thing without glancing back to his sister for approval, which was a habit Joy had presumed people to grow out of as children. She would not know for certain, not having any brothers or sisters of her own, but she supposed she had Red Walder and the rest, and that was similar enough for her.

No, Joy didn't much like Tywin's precious golden twins, or Tywin himself come to that, but Genna was not one to allow such a thing.

Joy very much liked her aunt – Genna had taken her in when Da went adventuring, more or less, and when he'd disappeared altogether, Genna had petitioned the King and had Joy Hill remade as Lady Jocelyn of House Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock. They'd had to travel all the way to King's Landing for that, because Genna was a Paramount, and Joy had hidden behind her aunt whenever Cersei was in the room for fear of what her cousin might do.

Cersei had hoped, Joy knew, that she would remain the only legitimate female heir Genna might have. If she remained so, her inheriting the Rock upon Genna's death could go uncontested, even though as Queen she ought have entirely given up her claim. With Joy's legitimisation, Cersei had been removed from the succession once and for all, and Joy did not doubt that the Queen hated her as much as she hated the King. 

Dinner with the royal family had been absolutely rotten, and Joy was relieved when Walder agreed – they were about two years apart, Joy and Red Walder, but they had been the youngest in Genna's household and had banded together against his brothers, an alliance which had amused Genna to no end.

“Tell me, cousin,” Joy said as she walked the massive hall on Walder's arm – there were others about so they could not speak wholly honestly, true enough, but Joy had long since learned to save real honesty for the safety of the Rock. “What do you make of Lady Shireen?”

“Ugly,” he said promptly, “but I am hardly one to talk on that front, I suppose. She watches everything and I think sees much, too. Mother would like her.”

“I make of her a cleverer woman than I had heard she would be,” Joy said, and found herself concerned by it. Their sources had never been entirely reliable on Dragonstone, for it was isolated and therefore awkward, but even so, surely the Lady Shireen's obvious intelligence should have been remarked upon? Joy had half-listened to her conversations with the Arryn boy and Renly Baratheon, and while she was no wit, was too serious to be truly charming, Shireen Baratheon was _clever,_ and more perceptive than Joy thought Genna would like.

Genna liked intelligent, perceptive folk, so long as she could guarantee that their primary allegiance was, if not to her, then at least to House Lannister. Beyond that, she was suspicious of them, and regarded them all as enemies whether they worked against her or not. Joy somtimes wondered if such a mindset was lonely, but knew that Genna did not consider it so. Genna would consider it only expedient, that word which blasted Tywin was so fond of, which meant any objections of Joy's would be soundly ignored.

As much as Joy disliked her oldest uncle, Tywin blasted Lannister liked her even less. Part of Joy thought it purely because she had ousted Cersei from the succession, but she had seen the way Tywin looked at the Dornish guests here at Harrenhall, the way he spoke of Dorne and the Free Cities. Joy's own mother had been Qohori, and sainted Ser Tywin hated Joy as much for her dark skin and the small shrine to the Black Goat she maintained in her chambers at the Rock as he did her former bastardy or her ousting of his precious daughter.

Precious, Joy reminded herself, but not beloved. Bastard or no, Joy knew well her parents had loved her – loved her still, if her prayers for her father's survival went answered. That was a comfort of sorts, when her aunt and uncles seemed to only tolerate her for her father's blood and naught else.

She would prove herself just as worthy as any of them. She  _would._ She would do her mother and father proud.

“Mayhaps,” she said to Walder, “I will befriend the Lady Shireen. I am sure that she and Lord Robert would enjoy some extra company, aren't you, cousin?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of Soldiers' Daughters and Mothers' Sons. I think I have everything better under control this time around.


End file.
